User:Blemke34/sandbox

The Civil Rights Movement began on December 1, 1955 when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman from Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus. The Civil Rights Movement was a struggle for social justice and equality for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. Although the Civil War had abolished slavery it did not end the discrimination that African Americans were up against afterwards. By the 1950s, especially the 1960s, African Americans had had enough of the violence and injustice against them. They, with many whites who also had enough of the injustice in the country they lived it, began a fight for equality. The beginning of the Civil Rights Movement began within the 1950s with Rosa Park (link to wiki page), the boycott of the Montgomery bus system (link to wiki page), the little rock nine (link to wiki page), and the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (link to wiki page). Although they made gains throughout the 1950s, African-Americans still dealt with injustice throughout their lives. On February 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, four college students took a stand against the segregation by refusing to leave a lunch counter until they were served. As the days went hundreds of people joined their stand. Many were arrested and charged for trespassing which led protestors to launch a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners gave in and served the first four students. (link to Greensboro sit in on wiki). In 1964 with much help from President John F. Kennedy, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The acted ended all segregation in public places and made it illegal for employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, or gender. President Kennedy had proposed it and even with much opposition from southern members of Congress it was successfully signed to law by Lyndon B. Johnson after Kennedy’s passing. The following year President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, outlawing the discrimination of voting practices many southern states had adopted after the Civil War preventing African Americans to vote such as literacy tests. The following years the Civil Rights Movement lost two of its leaders, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), were both assassinated. Malcom X was killed on February 21, 1965 at a rally and MLK was killed on April 4, 1968 on his hotel room’s balcony. Days after MLK assassination The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968. It would be the last legislation enacted ruing the civil rights era, and prevented housing discrimination based on race, religion, and gender. The movement was an empowering time for African Americans, and with the efforts of both Black and White Americans they were able to move legislators to end segregation, voting suppression, employment and housing discrimation.